jbonehoss

MOVED FROM " Raja Amphat with Larry Smith and Adventure H2O" Thread in Dive Destinations and Travel Forum:

" In search of black bass and barra .......... mostly fishing " !!!!!!!!!!!!

Raja Ampat region was nominated as an Unesco's World Heritage place ,
why you don't go fishing to another place ?

Didn't you hear? The rest of the world has been fished out and trashed... *sigh*

Hello,

As some of you know, I recently returned from a trip to Raja Ampat Indonesia (seems like quite the busy place these days!).  My primary goal was close focus wide angle and capturing the carnival of colors on the reefs.  I actually did not even bring a macro kit at all.  I pretty much spent the whole time with 10.5 and 15mm lenses.

Here are a couple teasers below.  You can see a Gallery at Flickr.  Or, you can watch the Slideshow at Flickr.  Also, we ran into some cool (2 meter) Octopus Mating.

Feedback is most appreciated!













Thanks!

Hello,

We just got back from a fantastic trip to Raja Ampat. Unfortunately we also got a glimpse of the dark underbelly of shark fishing as well.

Our travels took us to spend the week with Andrew Miners who is building a conservation and dive destination on Batbitim island in southern Raja Ampat. As part of his work there he has leased all fishing rights in a 200km area. This is really fantastic news as he looks to create a first line of defense and conservation. The plan is to develop official enforcement of the area to protect the reef and fish stocks which should translate to some fantastic diving.

[One thing to note at this point, in contrast to the huge schools of fish we found, is the serious depletion of sharks in these waters. Over the course of our week stay with daily diving we only managed to see 1 small blacktip from the boat and 1 small whitetip on a remote reef. Every shark is precious as they will all be needed to re-populate the waters]

On the way back from a dive we passed by a lagoon and spotted a small fishing boat floating suspiciously. We circled around and approached to find the fisherman at the boat and on the small deck were shark fins drying in the sun. The surprise of the discovery was quickly overwhelmed by what we saw next. Looking down into the water, we could see a pile of shark corpses dumped right underneath the boat – these guys had just finished!





We quickly got out all our camera equipment (video and stills) and proceeded to “shock and awe” them with all the photos and footage we took above and below the water. We also boarded and Andrew Miners (who owns all the fishing rights and has been in the region for quite some time) educated them about how this is no longer allowed and they must leave. I think we were a pretty convincing crew.





One problem is that there is nothing officially illegal about what they were doing. The only protection we have against this activity is the fishing rights that Andrew has purchased and that he and the local villages will enforce. In fact, during questioning these fishermen produced a license they had purchased for "1 month of shark fishing" for a grand total of about 30 US dollars.





So, 1 small boat with 8 dead sharks…not really much out of the 100 million slaughtered each year. Does it make a difference? I hope it does. One of the things I saw was that this boat was serviced by a number of smaller canoes. 3 canoes supported by this larger craft which will be out on the water for 1 full month. It seems quite likely that this larger boat is simply feeding a “mother ship”. My hope is that in 10 years time we can return and see 20 live sharks instead of 2 with 8 finned. I really think we can make a big local impact.







Wetpixeler Shawn (shawnh) was there also and got some video footage – hopefully we’ll get him to post a clip here. Also, if anybody wants to use these images for any (positive) conservation reasons just let me know and I can provide hi-res versions as well.

-- Justin

Hello,

A friend of mine saw this in a bay in Bermuda.  I have never seen one before.  Anyone care to ID?  Its very cool looking!

Recently returned from an amazing Bahamas shark trip on the Shearwater (www.scuba-adventures.com).  We had great luck cage-free diving with Tiger Sharks, Great Hammerheads, Bulls, etc.  I thought I would share a couple shots!  Please feel free to hammer away with any/all opinions.  Its hard to pick from the thousands of shots on a trip, but here are 4...














I highly recommand the trip - its very intense and real